donation for the disabled children at the Presidential Palace,” reads another. “The executive committee director with British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and General (later U.S. President) Eisenhower,” reads a third. Many of the photos feature Prince Robert tapping a ceremonial sword on the shoulders of movie stars: Anthony Quinn, Sammy Davis Jr., Liza Minnelli, Ernest Borgnine.
I’m hoping to find a picture of Cesar. No such luck. Soon after I force myself to set aside the photo file, I uncover another possible clue. It takes the form of a raised-letter carte de visite bearing the House of Badische coat of arms: a golden eagle with outstretched wings and a pair of lions standing on their hind legs, front paws raised as if ready to strike.
I’ve seen a crest just like it, but I can’t recall where.
With a growing sense of déjà vu, I reach for the Cesareum. It doesn’t take long to locate what I’m looking for. Eagle with outstretched wings? Check. Lion rampant with paws extended? Check. The heraldic symbols on the Badische calling card are uncannily similar to the ones on my Aiglon blazer patch. The correspondence suggests yet another. A crazy image pops into my head: Cesar sketching the Badische coat of arms with his Aiglon blazer close at hand.
I take a break to inform Goodman and Diane of the graphic connections.
“Case closed,” Diane says, delicately touching my tattered school patch as if it were the Shroud of Turin.
“Not so fast,” Goodman interjects. He asks if I have further proof.
I run through the rest of the corroborating evidence.
“That’s it?” he says. “Sounds like a stretch.”
His doubts don’t surprise me. He’s a lawyer. He’s paid to be skeptical. I return to the conference room and continue to dig. By midnight, I have worked through the last of the fourteen boxes. Seventy thousand documents and not one of them, not a damn one, provides the proof I’m looking for.
Did the Aiglon crest inspire the logo of the Badische Trust Consortium?
D EFENDANT ’ S M EMORANDUM IN A ID OF S ENTENCING
By the time I arrive at the law firm Sunday morning, Goodman and Diane are already at work, fine-tuning a seventeen-hundred-page report for a drug manufacturer fending off a multibillion-dollar class action suit. I say a quick hello before returning to the conference room. Documents blanket the full length of the table. It’s as if the Friday blizzard has moved inside.
Cesar, you son of a bitch, where are you?
Beleaguered by the mess, I barely have the energy to reach for the Redwelds Diane furnished late Friday. But hours before I’m scheduled to return home, while forcing myself to leaf through the supplemental index to a “Defendant’s Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing,” I come across a short declarative sentence that raises the hairs on the back of my neck: “Cesar A. Viana was born on April 24, 1958 in Manila, Philippines.”
Bingo! After unleashing a string of curses and completing a fist-pumping victory lap around the conference table, I call Françoise.
“Listen to this!” I read her the incriminating line.
“ Merde! What else does it say?”
“That he’s upper-middle-class. That his mother ran the family business, the Realistic Beauty Institute, and that his father was an inventor.”
“Like your father,” Françoise interjects.
“I know. Eerie.”
“So I guess Cesar’s father didn’t torture people for a living.”
“Guess not. He left that to his son. It also says the dad was a severe alcoholic and that he died of a heart attack when Cesar was nineteen.” I read Françoise a key paragraph:
Although the defendant suffered no physical abuse or neglect at the hands of his father, the emotional impact of his father’sdeterioration was crushing to him. . . . Cesar “has spent much of his life seeking appropriate male role models to fill the void left by his father’s illness and eventual passing,” as his sister documents in her letter
I’m hoping to find a picture of Cesar. No such luck. Soon after I force myself to set aside the photo file, I uncover another possible clue. It takes the form of a raised-letter carte de visite bearing the House of Badische coat of arms: a golden eagle with outstretched wings and a pair of lions standing on their hind legs, front paws raised as if ready to strike.
I’ve seen a crest just like it, but I can’t recall where.
With a growing sense of déjà vu, I reach for the Cesareum. It doesn’t take long to locate what I’m looking for. Eagle with outstretched wings? Check. Lion rampant with paws extended? Check. The heraldic symbols on the Badische calling card are uncannily similar to the ones on my Aiglon blazer patch. The correspondence suggests yet another. A crazy image pops into my head: Cesar sketching the Badische coat of arms with his Aiglon blazer close at hand.
I take a break to inform Goodman and Diane of the graphic connections.
“Case closed,” Diane says, delicately touching my tattered school patch as if it were the Shroud of Turin.
“Not so fast,” Goodman interjects. He asks if I have further proof.
I run through the rest of the corroborating evidence.
“That’s it?” he says. “Sounds like a stretch.”
His doubts don’t surprise me. He’s a lawyer. He’s paid to be skeptical. I return to the conference room and continue to dig. By midnight, I have worked through the last of the fourteen boxes. Seventy thousand documents and not one of them, not a damn one, provides the proof I’m looking for.
Did the Aiglon crest inspire the logo of the Badische Trust Consortium?
D EFENDANT ’ S M EMORANDUM IN A ID OF S ENTENCING
By the time I arrive at the law firm Sunday morning, Goodman and Diane are already at work, fine-tuning a seventeen-hundred-page report for a drug manufacturer fending off a multibillion-dollar class action suit. I say a quick hello before returning to the conference room. Documents blanket the full length of the table. It’s as if the Friday blizzard has moved inside.
Cesar, you son of a bitch, where are you?
Beleaguered by the mess, I barely have the energy to reach for the Redwelds Diane furnished late Friday. But hours before I’m scheduled to return home, while forcing myself to leaf through the supplemental index to a “Defendant’s Memorandum in Aid of Sentencing,” I come across a short declarative sentence that raises the hairs on the back of my neck: “Cesar A. Viana was born on April 24, 1958 in Manila, Philippines.”
Bingo! After unleashing a string of curses and completing a fist-pumping victory lap around the conference table, I call Françoise.
“Listen to this!” I read her the incriminating line.
“ Merde! What else does it say?”
“That he’s upper-middle-class. That his mother ran the family business, the Realistic Beauty Institute, and that his father was an inventor.”
“Like your father,” Françoise interjects.
“I know. Eerie.”
“So I guess Cesar’s father didn’t torture people for a living.”
“Guess not. He left that to his son. It also says the dad was a severe alcoholic and that he died of a heart attack when Cesar was nineteen.” I read Françoise a key paragraph:
Although the defendant suffered no physical abuse or neglect at the hands of his father, the emotional impact of his father’sdeterioration was crushing to him. . . . Cesar “has spent much of his life seeking appropriate male role models to fill the void left by his father’s illness and eventual passing,” as his sister documents in her letter
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